Star Wars novelists seek royalties from Disney Published: Dec. 20, 2020 at 8:28 p.m. ET By Resize icon
Alan Dean Foster was in his late 20s when George Lucas, standing near a model of the Millennium Falcon in a warehouse in Southern California, met him to discuss writing the novel adaptation of his forthcoming movie Star Wars.
The original contract called for an upfront payment of $7,500, until Mr. Lucas tossed Mr. Foster a 0.5% royalty on sales that Mr. Foster, now 74 years old, says added up to several times that initial payment. They arrived several times a year as the original 1977 blockbuster set box-office records and the novelization he wrote went on to sell more than one million copies.
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By Erich Schwartzel | Photographs by Caitlin O Hara for The Wall Street Journal Alan Dean Foster was in his late 20s when George Lucas, standing near a model of the Millennium Falcon in a warehouse in Southern California, met him to discuss writing the novel adaptation of his forthcoming movie Star Wars. The original contract called for an upfront payment of $7,500, until Mr. Lucas tossed Mr. Foster a 0.5% royalty on sales that Mr. Foster, now 74 years old, says added up to several times that initial payment. They arrived several times a year as the original 1977 blockbuster set box-office records and the novelization he wrote went on to sell more than one million copies.
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Disney has recently come under fire due to accusations of
non-payment of royalties to the critically acclaimed author, Mr.
Alan Dean Foster. Specializing in the genres of science fiction and
fantasy, Foster has authored novelisations of the
Star
Warsfranchise, which include
Star Wars: From the
Adventures of Luke Skywalker (1976)
, Splinter of the
Mind s Eye (1978)
, The Approaching Storm
(2002)and
Star Wars: The Force Awaken (2015), and the
Alien movie franchise, which include
Alien
(1979)
, Aliens (1986)
, Aliens 3 (1992), among
numerous other notable works. The movie franchises were produced by